Nissan just confirmed it plans to cut 20,000 jobs globally and won’t offer a profit forecast for the year ahead. It’s a dramatic move as the Rogue, Altima, and Sentra maker grapples with ballooning costs, sliding sales, and a cloudy future.

“The reality is clear. We have a very high cost structure,” CEO Ivan Espinosa said Tuesday. “To complicate matters further, the global market environment is volatile and unpredictable, making planning and investment increasingly challenging.”

The Tokyo-based company reported a net loss of 671 billion yen (about $4.5 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 2025. 

That’s Nissan’s second-worst result ever

It’s just shy of the 684 billion yen loss posted back in 2000 during its original crisis years.

And the pain doesn’t end there. Renault, which owns nearly 36 percent of Nissan, expects to take a $2.4 billion hit from Nissan’s turnaround efforts. Espinosa told reporters, “We wouldn’t be doing this if it was not necessary to survive,” France 24 shared.

The recovery roadmap includes trimming its global plant count from 17 to 10 by 2027 and a bigger push into China with new-energy vehicles. The company also shelved a $1 billion battery plant project in Japan due to what it called a tough “business environment.”

Meanwhile, merger talks with Honda hit the wall in February after Honda floated making Nissan a subsidiary. Still, Espinosa says Nissan is “open to collaborating with multiple partners.”

The firm’s junk-rated status reflects its “weak profitability” and “ageing model portfolio,” according to Moody’s. U.S. tariffs and Chinese EV competition add even more heat.

“Nissan must prioritise self-improvement with greater urgency and speed,” Espinosa said.

For now, the automaker is in survival mode: cutting jobs, shrinking operations, and hoping it doesn’t run out of road.